Dr. Sandra Adams, Associate professor of Medicine in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, TX, discusses her article appearing in the September 2012 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, where she shares that when adult learning techniques are put into practice within clinical medicine training, positive results occur. Available at: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(12)00680-5/fulltext

The principal obstacle to successful treatment of tuberculosis is the lengthy duration of current regimens, which require administration of multiple drugs for 6-9 months. The requirement for prolonged therapy is attributed to sub-populations of bacillary "persisters" that are refractory to antimicrobials. The persisters are not drug-resistant in the conventional (heritable) sense and it is a mystery why they are spared whilst their genetically identical siblings are killed. The third part of...

Tuberculosis remains one of the most important causes of human disease and death despite the introduction of vaccination in 1921 and chemotherapy in 1952. Although these interventions are inexpensive and widely available their impact is limited. The effectiveness of vaccination is unclear; in clinical trials, the protection conferred by vaccination has been variable and generally poor. Although chemotherapy can be highly effective, multiple drugs must be administered for 6-9 months to...